She Killed for Love
by lavender baby
Summary: Pansy Parkinson never chose Light or Dark. She chose to love a doomed man. A man that led her into a life that she hated but could not and would not regret.


She sat in a holding cell in the bowels of the Ministry studying her immaculate manicure.

Hermione Granger watched her from the charmed, two-way glass and wondered if Pansy Parkinson was really as stupid as she seemed or just utterly indifferent to her fate. She didn't seem too worried about the fact that her enemies had her in their grips and planned on wringing out any information she might have in any way that might be fruitful, humane or not.

In fact, if Hermione Granger were the kind of person to take things at their face value, she might have been convinced to believe that Pansy Parkinson was nothing more than an empty-headed toy of powerful Slytherin men. She might have been convinced to believe that Pansy Parkinson really cared more about her manicure than the machinations going on around her and her possible fate. But Hermione Granger was not called the most intelligent witch of her generation for nothing.

There had been crimes committed during the course of this long, hateful war that were a mystery. Murders and tortures of eminent men which were committed with a studied grace and a touch of elegance that could only be that of a woman. These murders, these tortures, they were done to men who held important positions in the side of Light as well as Dark, and they were done with a careless cruelty that only a woman could be capable of. Hermione was convinced that they had been committed by Pansy Parkinson, a wild card in the war who had seemed at first committed to Lord Volemort's side until a few years ago when Peter Pettigrew turned up dead, then a few months later, MacNair was dumped on the Ministry's doorstep, tortured and driven mad by the unspeakable things done to him. These sorts of things had also happened to men on the side of Harry Potter, and for a while, the identity of the person who had committed these horrific crimes had remained a mystery.

The main branch of Ministry aurors had scratched their heads and wondered over this mystery for months. The methods used and the style of the murders were unlike that of anything they had ever seen. The men had been puzzled by the fact that each man had seemed to engage in consensual intercourse before any of the torturing began and by the fact that the bodies were left intact, without bruise or mar to show the pain they had underwent. But there was no denying the men had suffered when they were magically exhumed and studied. Each man had either been tortured or murdered extremely painfully with unusual spells they had never before seen. Of course, all the aurors in that investigation had been male.

When Moody had approached Hermione, her curiosity had been piqued with this mystery. When she had been thoroughly briefed on the spells used and the various methods of death, she had had a suspicion. When she had begun to thoroughly research the hunch she had, she had become certain. The murders had been committed by a woman with spells created by a woman.

Morgana le Fay.

Hermione shuddered at the thought of just the name. Morgana le Fay, one of the evilest women in magical history, she had entranced, seduced, tortured, and murdered many men in her lifetime.

Hermione returned to the present and once again stared at her prisoner.

Pansy had been caught by none other than Harry and Ron as she leaned over a Ministry wizard she had just murdered, Draco Malfoy at her side. What had commenced was a grand chase ending with Draco Malfoy being killed by one of his own spells and Pansy being brought in, docile and as sweet as a lamb. Hermione, while she had known the murders had been committed by a woman, hadn't known who the mystery woman was, until now. Now she was sure that the murderess was Pansy Parkinson, despite all the signs showing otherwise, and now she had to go prove it.

"She doesn't look very dangerous." Marlon, an eager, young auror said pompously to Hermione.

She continued to study Pansy studying her nails. "Marx, from Magical Defense had his nails ripped out, grown, ripped out, grown, and ripped out, in a cycle that lasted until his death." Hermione said softly in response.

Marlon shifted. "I know. It's just…"

"Just what?"

"Look, I'm from a pureblood family, Ravenclaw, so I know her type." he shrugged. "My dad had one just like her."

Hermione finally turned away from the glass and faced the younger man. "One just like her?"

"A little dish on the side. You know, an empty-headed bimbo." he met Hermione's bland eyes and glanced away uncomfortable with the subject. "And she was in Slytherin. Slytherin girls, especially the pureblooded ones like Parkinson, are borne and bred for one purpose, and that's to grow up and be the indifferent wife who'll look the other way of a powerful, pureblood male."

Hermione studied Marlon for another second before nodding and turning back to the glass. "So you think she's harmless even though she was Draco Malfoy's escort/mistress/girlfriend of choice?"

"Well, yeah. I mean the most important thing she probably ever discussed with him was whether or not their dress robes would match with each other. Men like Draco Malfoy don't share power in relationships."

Hermione turned on her heel and marched towards the door. "We'll see."

Marlon stared at her. "Where are you going?"

"I'm going to interview the suspect. Then you'll see how dangerous some empty-headed bimbos can be." She closed the door behind her with a snap and walked the few feet down the corridor until she reached the door of the room that Pansy Parkinson was being held in. After muttering the incantations and spells that were required to open the door, she entered quietly and locked the door behind her.

When she turned, it was to find Pansy staring at her.

"Well, well, if it isn't the redoubtable Hermione fucking Granger." Pansy smiled pleasantly. Too pleasantly.

"Hello, Pansy." Hermione sat down in the chair opposite her.

Immediately, the fire in the eyes of the woman across from her disappeared and in their place was an empty, vacant look with a hint of maliciousness that Hermione remembered well from their days at Hogwarts. She had been fooled once before by that empty-headed expression, but not anymore.

"I see that you still look like you had a rather violent run in with the horribly bad fashion stick." Pansy's eyes raked down Hermione's plain brown blouse then back up to meet her bland eyes. "Tell me, Granger, have you yet discovered you're female?"

"Drop the act." Hermione said mildly, leaning back in her chair. "And call me Hermione."

"Whyever would I do that? And what act?"

"Because I have a feeling we're going to get to know each other pretty well before this interview is over. And your act would be your pretend show of being nothing more than a ditsy socialite with no depth whatsoever. We both know the real you."

Pansy studied Hermione for a few seconds before throwing her head back and laughing. When she once again met the other woman's eyes, her's were once again shining with a quick intelligence and edge of sarcasm she had hid in the presence of all others except one.

"Tell me, Hermione, when did you decide I had a modicum of intelligence and was therefore no longer beneath your notice?" Pansy leaned forward and smiled good-naturedly.

Hermione leaned down and pulled a stack of photos out of her briefcase. She slid them over the table to rest beneath Pansy's eyes.

"When I found out about these."

Pansy looked down for a second then back up. "And they are…"

"Photos. Of certain people."

"Are they dead? They look like they're sleeping." Pansy shifted through the stack for a second, then froze. Her breath hitched and her fingers tightened fractionally when she reached the picture of Draco Malfoy lying on concrete, the top of his head cleanly sliced off. There would be no confusion as to whether or not he was dead.

Pansy raised narrow eyes burning with a volcanic fire to Hermione's. "You fucking bitch."

"Oh, I'm sorry." Hermione reached over and took back the picture of Draco. "That shouldn't have been in there."

"You put that picture in there on purpose."

"Did I?" Hermione shrugged. "Maybe."

"Why?" Pansy resisted, barely, the urge to lunge over the table and slug the other woman. "Why did you do that?"

"Because I wanted a reaction. A reaction that might lead to the truth."

"The truth? The truth about what?"

"Those." Hermione gestured towards the pictures of the murdered and torture men.

"I see." Pansy scrubbed her hands over her tired face. "So you want the truth."

"Yes."

"All right. I did it." Pansy rested her elbows on the table an leaned on her hands. "Here's the confession, Hermione. I murdered each and every one of them. And the ones I didn't murder, I tortured them into insanity." She smiled. "Clap me in irons and lead me away, because I just confessed."

Inside the other room, Marlon's jaw fell open.

Hermione studied the woman across from her who was grinning like a loon. "Too easy." she said.

"What?"

"That was too easy. Why did you just tell me that so easily?"

"Because it doesn't matter anymore. Nothing does."

"Why?"

"Why the fuck do you want to know, Hermione?" Pansy couldn't stand keeping up her façade of indifference any longer and sprang out of her chair. "Merlin, save me from Gyffindor's and their bloody curiosity."

Hermione watched her pace frantically. "I'm not just curious."

"Oh, I bet you aren't."

"Come on, Pansy." Hermione said, showing her first bit of impatience. "Do you think I don't know what those spells you used are? That I don't know who made them? That I don't know the requirements needed to use them."

"I don't know what you're talking about."

"Oh, please." Hermione scoffed. "I may not know how to color-coordinate my clothes, but I bloody know how to do my research. And I did it."

Pansy walked back to her chair and gave it a hearty kick. It didn't so much as move an inch, mostly because it was magicked to the floor. "Yeah, so what?" she muttered.

Hermione sat back in her chair. "You're very, very clever. I'll give you that."

"Shut up."

"Using those spells. Nobody could have traced them back to you, because nobody knew about them. And nobody knew about them because nobody has ever used them before you. Nobody could."

Pansy sat back down in her chair and stared back at the bushy-haired woman silently.

"Morgana le Fay's spells all had a secret core that made her the only one able to use them. Love." Hermione whispered. "Every man she killed was because of love. In each of them she saw the one man she had loved but inadvertently killed. Of course, none of them ever really measured up to him, so she killed them. But first, she loved them. Very, very deeply." Hermione paused and took a deep breath. "And no one before, who could actually read Morgana's mad scribblings understood that love was the secret. They tried to use her spells, and they failed, so the spells were eventually written off as impossible for anyone else to ever use and they faded into oblivion. Everyone forgot."

Pansy smiled somewhat nostalgically. "Until I found them. And I understood."

"Yes," Hermione nodded, "it would have taken a woman to understand what was at the heart of the spells. Of course, women have never been really celebrated as scholars, so that's why her spells were forgotten. No woman before us has ever really got to study them. First, because they were out of any woman's reach; Morgana had proven how dangerous women could be when they dabbled in powerful magic, so men kept all of it away from them. Then, once her spells were thought to be useless, no one cared anymore, not even women."

"Yes."

"So, why Pansy?" Hermione leaned forward and stared hard into the eyes of the other woman. "Tell me why you killed and tortured all of those men."

"Why else?" she shrugged. "Love. It's at the heart of everything isn't it?"

"Love? Love for whom?"

Pansy leaned back and folded her arms over her chest. "Let me tell you a story, Hermione." she sighed and closed her eyes for a few seconds. When she opened them again, they had a faraway look that said Pansy had traveled to another time and place. "Once upon a time there was a girl. She was born into an upstanding, pureblooded family that stretched back for generations. That little girl was the perfect blood-specimen who was destined to grow up and become the perfect, little wife for some eligible, pure-blooded male, so they could start the cycle all over again. Except, something was wrong with that little girl. Something was terribly, terribly strange about that girl. What was wrong with her?" Pansy's eyes abruptly focused on Hermione. "This is the part you probably won't ever understand, so try and bear with me, okay, Hermione?"

Hermione nodded and stayed silent.

"Well, what was wrong with that little girl was that she wanted more. She wanted a hell of a lot more than what fate wanted to give her. Much to her parents' mutual dismay, she had a brain, and she wanted to use it. Really, she was a child prodigy. A genius."

__

"What's this filth you're reading now, girl?" Pansy's mother snatched the book out of her little hands.

"It's Plato, mother." the little girl looked yearningly at the book. She was ten and finally understanding her desire to explore the world, muggle and wizard. "He was a muggle who lived a long time ago and he wrote about wonderful ideas-"

Pansy's mother interrupted her heartful speech with a cruel slap. "You're reading muggle filth?" she screeched.

Pansy looked down as tears welled in her eyes.

"Albert, come here, come quickly." her mother yelled to her father, so upset at her abnormal daughter that she forgot yelling was very unladylike.

"What is it, dear?" Pansy's father asked impatiently, looking down at his daughter's bent head. "What did Pansy do now?"

"She was reading again!" her mother waved the book around in agitation. "Not only that, but she was reading a book by muggle filth."

Without even having to look up, Pansy knew her father's face had purpled.

"Muggles?" he roared.

"Exactly." her mother had said in satisfaction. "I hope you now understand the importance of our situation. She's corrupting her mind and if any of it gets out, no one will ever want her. And it's your fault it got this far. You said that reading wouldn't be so bad, but now she's got ideas in her head. Now, she's reading things by muggles, and all because…"

Pansy jolted back to the present. "Well, you can imagine the little girl's parents and what they felt when they learned the extent of her intelligence. It was bad enough that she wanted to learn, but for her to be actually good at it? It couldn't have been worse."

Hermione couldn't stand it any longer. "That's barbaric! That's totally and completely _medieval_!" she said vehemently.

"For you. For them, it was the way things were done." Pansy explained patiently. "Anyway, so her parents couldn't understand her, and she couldn't help herself. The little girl snuck books into the house, got them taken away, got in quite a bit of trouble. Her parents would never give up on making her _normal_, and she began to hate them for it. In turn, they began to treat her with indifference except for when they had to punish her." Pansy sighed. "All of that changed, though, when she left for Hogwarts. The little girl was depressed, because she had been told that at Hogwarts they didn't encourage females reading or learning or anything like that. So she was on the Hogwarts Express crying her 11 year old heart out, thinking she had been transferred from one prison to another, when a little, blonde boy poked his head inside her compartment and asked imperiously if she was Pansy Parkinson. The little girl looked up, sniffed a few times, wiped her tears off her blotched face, and answered that she was indeed Pansy Parkinson and what did he want with her. The blonde boy had then entered the compartment, closed the door, and sat across from her with a smug look on his face as if he thought she had issued him an invitation or some such thing. He then proceeded to tell her that her mother had asked his mother if he could please keep an eye on her because her mother said that she was entirely too smart for her own good and just not _normal_. His mother had then told him to do so, since her mother an his were such good friends. Normally, he had said, he wouldn't have bothered to do what his mother told him to do, but since she had said that Pansy was abnormal, he wanted to see what was so wrong with her. Pansy, the little girl, had then said it was none of his business, and he had said that, yes, it was since he was to look after her and make her normal. Pansy had then pointed out that he hadn't even introduced himself so why should she have to tell him anything. In response that little boy had said arrogantly, 'I'm Draco Malfoy. You should know my family.' And to that Pansy had said she didn't give a fig who his family was and that she didn't need him to look after her, she didn't need anyone. At that, he had looked intrigued then pointed out that she was crying so obviously she needed someone. Stumped, Pansy had then had no choice to reveal that the thing that wasn't _normal_ about her was that she liked to _read_. For _fun_. Draco had then cocked his head to the side and asked what was wrong with that. Pansy had then told him in a prim voice like that of her mother's was that reading wasn't done. At least not by females, because what eligible bachelor would want a woman who was smarter than he? Draco's reply was that what kind of person would want to marry a person who was dumber than themselves. Of course, Pansy couldn't reply because that was exactly what she thought. So they had sat there in silence, thinking about that problem, when little boy Draco suddenly made the best suggestion the little girl had ever heard in her eleven years of living." Pansy paused and smiled in remembrance.

"What was it?" Hermione asked curiously.

"He said," she laughed, "little Draco said that why couldn't little girl Pansy just pretend. 'Pretend?' The little girl asked. And Draco had said that she should. She should just pretend to not like to read and pretend to care about girly things. Then everyone would think she was normal and she could do whatever she liked in secret and no one would suspect a thing because she was pretending to be normal so well. He had then said to the little girl with a sneer that if she had never thought of a solution that simple before, then he wasn't very impressed with her supposed intelligence." Pansy laughed again. "And that little girl who had been so depressed before, thought about his suggestion, decided it could work, then embarrassed the both of them thoroughly when she leapt across the apace between them and planted a big kiss on that little boy's cheek."

Pansy grinned off into the distance. "That little boy and that little girl became the best of friends, with a bond that went deeper than either of them could understand at the time. Eventually, they grew up and, of course, they recognized the bond for what it was, love, and they became lovers as well as friends. The girl, meanwhile, successfully managed to pretend to be a simpering idiot and only revealed her true self in that boy's presence. But, as all stories do, there were some bad parts that couldn't be forgotten. While the girl was busy with the studies she didn't supposedly care about, and while she selfishly chased knowledge for her own pleasure, she didn't pay that close of attention to the boy. He fell in with his father's business and bowed to familial pressure, and he took the Dark Mark. When the girl found out what he had done, she had lost it completely. By then she had known that the Dark Lord's cause was a lost one and he could never succeed, even if he should win the second War. Evil like his, she knew, would eventually topple, and with it, everyone else who followed it. But she had been too busy with her own life to notice what was happening to her best friend's. She hadn't been there when he had needed her, and instead of interfering in her life and forcing her to pay attention, he had withdrawn and gone his own dark way. Devastated, she had watched for months while her lover slowly lost all the qualities she had first fallen in love with. She watched and was unable to do anything to save him. He had already chosen his path, and nothing she said or did would deter him."

Here Pansy's eyes suddenly refocused and she stared at Hermione with eyes that burned. "So she joined him. That woman swore she'd never again be the little girl who had abandoned the only person who had ever been there for her."

"So…" Hermione paused thoughtfully, "So all those men… Why?"

"For Draco." said Pansy simply. "I didn't believe in any cause. I threw my lot in with Draco's. I couldn't save him before the war, but those times I killed, I could save him then."

Hermione looked at Pansy incredulously. "And you didn't care about any of the repercussions that resulted from your actions?"

"Why should I have cared?" challenged Pansy. "Why should I have cared about what happened on either side? What has either side ever done for me? My pureblooded family despised me and mistreated me for years. You and your comrades with your preconceived notions have mistrusted me ever since you found out my last name was Parkinson. Why should I have cared about what happened to either side? The only person who's ever done anything for me was Draco. He _saved_ me even though I couldn't save him."

"But to kill for him?"

"Don't tell me you wouldn't kill for Potter or Weasley." scoffed Pansy.

Hermione glared. "Of course I would. But I'd be doing it for the right side."

"There's no _right _or _wrong_ side. Nothing is so cut and dried as that. Everything is relative."

"But Draco Malfoy!" Hermione waved her hands fervently. "He was evil. He had no hope of redemption!"

"As long as he was alive he had a chance! As long as he was alive I had hope!" Pansy's voice quieted down to a whisper. "As long as he was alive…"

Hermione wished she could understand this woman across from her, but she couldn't. She just couldn't. "I'm sorry." Hermione offered helplessly.

Pansy rubbed a hand across her tired eyes. "Don't say that. We both know you aren't sorry he's dead. I wouldn't expect you to be."

Hermione stayed silent. She had nothing to say, after all, she wasn't sorry that Draco Malfoy was dead. As far as she knew, he was better dead than alive. He couldn't hurt innocent people from his grave.

Finally, Pansy broke the tense silence. "Is there anything else you wanted?"

Hermione shook her head. Then remembered why she was in the room in the first place. "Actually, yes. We're going to need to know if you know anything else."

"No." Pansy closed her eyes. "Draco and I never discussed Deatheater activities. He knew how I felt about it. The only time we ever spoke about the war was when we discussed who was his new threat."

"We'll have to verify that, you know."

"How?"

Hermione shrugged. "Veritaserum, probably."

"Fine." Pansy laid her head down on her arms. "I've got nothing left to hide."

Hermione stood and looked down at the prone woman for a second before turning on her heel and leaving. She closed the door quietly behind her.

As Hermione walked down the hall, she felt a twinge of pity for the woman in the room behind her. And for the first time in her life, she began to wish that she could see the shades of gray in between the black and white of her world and understand them.

She wished she could understand Pansy Parkinson, a murderess with a heart and pure intentions. A woman who killed for love.


End file.
